The Table
You made the coffee table long before
I was on the scene, aged thirteen, a term’s work
in the carpentry class, as yet the names
of your wife and children uncarved in your heart;
young to master the music of your tools:
bit and brace, mallet, plane, drill and chisel,
to learn the skill, mystery of the grain;
to sand and saw, precision of the dovetail.
When later, our children began to walk
and fall, used it for support, you buttered
their bruises, covered corners with padded cloth;
turned your strong hands to fort and doll’s crib.
I never thought, you said yesterday,
of a wife and family, how it might be used.
For fifty years it has graced our sitting room
felt the rough and smooth of our lives,
lustre and shine. Quiet evenings we sit now
at our coffee table, your gifted hands in mine.